Seeing is believing

As the colder months creep into our lives, there is a big focus on looking after ourselves – eating things that are good for us, keeping warm and generally avoiding catching the flu. But two small things that we seem to forget when it comes to indulging in some TLC: our eyes.

We totally overlook them despite being one of the most important things in our daily lives! Pun intended btw. November and December are notorious for those contrasting crisp bright mornings and longer darker evenings, so I feel like at this time of the year it’s even more important to look after our eyes.

Obviously sensing that my eyes were due an MOT, the team at David Clulow offered me an eye health check at their Covent Garden store to make sure that everything seems as it should.

Being a Graphic Designer, my eyesight is totally ESSENTIAL to my job; arranging typography, choosing colour palettes and just general attention to detail. I spend most of my day looking at a screen (especially being a blogger too) and although I know that regular breaks are important, my eyes do suffer. I have a love-hate relationship with my eyes – I love them and they hate me for abusing them, bless them.

When it comes to the sight test, I feel like a bit of a cheat. I know letters REALLY well, so even if I can’t see clearly my mind automatically assesses the characteristics of the shape (straight edges or curves or diagonals) to make a guess. There are some letters that I can’t even make an educated guess on though as E and B are so similar if they are tiny and far away. I often struggle with reading the numbers on buses and just make a guess based on the blurry shape of the number – it’s always 3, 8 and 0 that I get mixed up. Anyone else have the same problem?

To my surprise, the vision in one of my eyes has actually improved – I used to have a stigmatism in my right eye, but it seems to have corrected itself. But the bad news is that my other has got slightly worse. You win some, you lose some. Anyway, it’s nothing serious and thankfully the optician said my eyes were generally in good health.

David Clulow had kindly offered me a pair of glasses from their Ray-Ban range, so I wasted no time in trying on almost every pair.

Choosing is harder than it looks, but luckily I had Rupa and Ella (also my photographer) on hand to help. To me, wearing glasses is fun as I only need them for screen time and reading (although I haven’t done a very good job of keeping that up, ooops!) so I see it as an opportunity to add to my personal style.

Eventually I narrowed it down to 2 pairs which were quite similar in style and shape, but one black and one brown. As I’m quite pale with a strong brow we all decided that black was too harsh for my face, so I chose the Ray-Ban RX5283 – a tortoise shell frame with grey arms.

With a decision made, Rupa did a few last checks to measure where my eyes sit on the lens and that was my eye care done for the day.

A few days later…

… and my glasses were ready to be collected! It was a super speedy turn around as my initial appointment was on Thursday and I received the collection text on the Tuesday afterwards. I was already in the area as I was meeting Ella for a coffee so I popped in and Rupa checked that they fitted ok (which they did – I have an average sized head, who knew?).

All good to go, I skipped off into the London sunset with my new glasses in a cute lil’ blue bag. Sounds easy because it really was.

A few days later…

… and I’m getting used to my new glasses, alongside my new co-working space! Not only do they look great in flat lays (hehe), they’re giving my eyes the little boost needed – no more straining here.

I’m hoping that I’ll be able to get into a good habit of remembering to wear my glasses as I’m building a new routine at the new co-working space (you can read about why I moved from my old one here if you’re interested). The new space is nice and bright which is good news for my eye health and productivity – not sure if I’ve moaned about how dark my flat is enough? ha

For all you fellow Graphic Designers/ Internet addicts out there, here are a few things to remember in order to keep your eyes healthy:

Take a kitkat.

This one is pretty obvious but I know that we’re all guilty of forgetting to do this because we get so engrossed in what we’re writing/ photoshopping/ aimlessly scrolling on Twitter. Make a cup of tea or just close your eyes ; take a break for 5 minutes.

Daydream into the distance.

If like me you have a desk that faces the wall it’s super important to look around you every now and again. Every 20 minutes you should look out of the window/far away so that your eyes aren’t always straining to focus on something really close. And if you’re likely to forget, you can use the eyeCare plugin to remind you to take breaks and help exercise your eyes – let’s call it eye-robics. Aha! Oh dear.

Get checked.

Even if you think your eyes are ok, you should get them checked over at least every 2 years. It’s not scary (the puff of air technique is GONE) and didn’t we already talk about how important our eyes are? The team at David Clulow are super lovely, so there’s no excuse to not visit really.

Drop it like it’s hot.

Turns out that Snoop Dogg knows a thing or two about eye health, who’d have guessed? Just like our skin, our eyes can become dehydrated so if yours start feeling as dry as the sahara desert treat your peepers to some eye drops. You’ll feel instantly refreshed and it’s also a good way to brighten your eyes after a heavy night out… not that I have too many of those ha

It’s definitely going to take some getting used to but as I’m a girl that ALWAYS carries a tote bag with her, I’ve not really got any excuse to forget my glasses. I want to keep my eyes happy and healthy PLUS I think I look pretty cute in my new glasses; do you like them?

It feels good to be looking after my eyes properly again after a little bit of neglect. How are your eyes holding up? Hope you enjoyed coming along on my little eye check up and if you see me at a screen without my glasses on, I totally give you permission to tell me off!

This post is in collaboration with Talented Talker and David Clulow as part of the #ClulowCares campaign to promote good eye health but as always all enthusiasm and bad puns about eyes are 100% my own.

4 Comments

Cool collab hun! As someone who wears contacts daily I really should invest in a pair of glasses to take the strain off my eyes in winter months – I find my lens drying out far more quickly in the cold!